Forget This Ever Happened

by Cassandra Rose Clarke

  She sits in the back seat of Audrey’s car, in her stupid costume, weeping. When the first raindrops dot the windows, she screams and yanks on the door handles again—but nothing happens. Because this isn’t just a car, this isn’t just a storm.

  As Claire listens to the pinging sound of rain on the car roof, she thinks of a hundred-year-old hurricane, of her ancestor who’d been out on the middle of the beach as it rolled into shore.

  The ancestor whose dress she is wearing, in the present.

  CHAPTER

  Nineteen

  JULIE

  Julie careens through Lawrence’s neighborhood, her heart banging around inside her chest. The sky roils with thick black clouds. It hasn’t started raining yet, but it’s so dark, the storm might as well be a hurricane, even though the radio hasn’t reported anything but thunderstorms.

  But Julie doesn’t care what the radio does or doesn’t say. It’s the anniversary of the hurricane and a storm’s blowing in and Claire is with Audrey and something terrible is going to happen.

  Something terrible’s going to happen, and Julie has to stop it.

  She hurtles around the corner. Lawrence’s house sits in the darkness, the windows barely illuminated. Julie presses her foot on the gas and lurches forward. She hunches over the steering wheel, her arms shaking from gripping it so tightly.

  Thunder rumbles in the distance.

  She pulls into the driveway and tumbles out of the car. Then she races up to the front door and rips it open. She has to catch him before he leaves for the Stargazer’s Masquerade.

  Aunt Rosa appears, her hair piled on top of her head. “Julie?” she asks. “You’re not going to the dance?”

  Julie’s thoughts are wild. “Is Lawrence here?”

  Aunt Rosa shakes her head. “You just missed him, sweetie. They left about five minutes ago. You might have even passed them on your way here.”

  “Them? Was Claire with him?”

  “Claire?”

  “My friend,” Julie says hopelessly. “Mrs. Sudek’s granddaughter.”

  “Oh, no.” Aunt Rosa frowns. “I didn’t see anyone else—Audrey picked him up. Sweet girl, don’t you think?”

  Julie’s ears buzz. “Aunt Rosa, I really don’t think Audrey is who she says she is—Ow!”

  Julie slams herself up against the doorframe, a sharp pain ricocheting through her skull.

  “Julie!” Aunt Rosa’s voice is distant, fuzzy. The pain turns into a light behind Julie’s eyes. She hears someone singing “Leader of the Pack.”

  “I’m fine.” Julie rubs at her head. The world swims around, a maelstrom of wind and lightning. “They’re going to the dance, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Julie nods. The pain in her head is slowly disappearing. She has to come at Audrey sideways, she realizes. It’s like Aldraa said. Audrey exists in a blind spot.

  And she’s taken Claire and Lawrence there with her.

  “Okay. Thanks, Aunt Rosa.” Julie gives her a kiss on the cheek. “If Lawrence calls, you tell him I’m looking for him, okay?”

  “Of course.” Aunt Rosa frowns. “Are you sure you’re all right, hon?”

  “I’m fine.” Julie turns and bounds off the porch before Aunt Rosa can ask her any more questions. She slides into the driver’s seat of the car and takes a deep breath. Aunt Rosa watches from the porch, and Julie gives her a smile and a wave, even though her heartbeat has picked up again, that wild drum-drum-drumming that echoes inside her own head.

  A drop of rain lands on the windshield.

  “Shit,” she whispers, and she turns on the engine and jerks the car out of the driveway and then speeds through the pitch-black evening. The VFW hall is on the edge of town, a ten-minute drive from Aunt Rosa’s house. Julie drives too fast, and she makes it there in six.

  The parking lot is already crammed full of cars, and music thumps out of the building: Haddaway, Pet Shop Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff. Thunder rumbles from the direction of the beach, a low and ominous sound that jars against the beat from the dance. Two women in feathery showgirl costumes cling to each other and race across the lot.

  Julie steps out of the car. The door to the VFW swings open, revealing a fan of light, a swell of volume-distorted music. Claire runs across the lot. The rain is still sprinkling, but her skin prickles with electricity, and she knows the storm is coming. She knows she doesn’t have much time.

  “Stop, miss! Need your ticket.”

  It’s a man dressed as a lobster. He waves one of his fabric claws at her. “Five-dollar entry fee.”

  “What?” Julie stares at him, not understanding.

  The lobster taps a sign taped next to the door. Tickets five dollars. Of course. Julie pulls a wadded-up five out of her pocket and tosses it at him and then pushes through the door.

  The inside of the VFW hall is a fever dream. Fog machines belt mist into the multicolored air, and the costumes catch the light and shine and sparkle. Everywhere Julie looks she sees cowboys and Terminators and Marge Simpsons and witches and sexy cats, all dancing together in the middle of the room.

  Of course. It’s a masquerade. They’ll be wearing costumes. She should have asked Aunt Rosa how Lawrence is dressed, just to give her something to go on.

  But then she remembers Claire asking to borrow the dress they found in her attic. Abigail’s dress. She never explained why, just asked one day out of the blue.

  A Victorian lady. Julie needs to look for a Victorian lady.

  Julie slinks up against the wall. The music thumps against her head, bringing that sharp pain back to the fore. The costumes and the lights blur together. She can’t see human faces anymore, only the costumes, bedazzled and surreal.

  Everyone here looks like a monster.

  No one looks like a Victorian woman.

  No one looks like Abigail Sudek.

  Abigail Sudek. Julie freezes next to the snack table. A boy in a Pinhead mask jostles up against her and shouts, “Hey!” but she ignores him.

  Claire borrowed Abigail’s dress. A dress from a hundred years ago.

  The timelines are disrupted.

  Thunder crashes outside the dance, louder than the music, and a cry of surprise erupts from the partygoers. Everyone looks up at the lights as if they’re expecting them to go out.

  A storm. A woman in a dress.

  Just like the night a hundred years ago.

  Julie paces away from the snack table, dodging a gang of zombies and a trio of girls from school dressed in red Baywatch swimsuits. Think. Think. Think. A hundred years ago, a hurricane rolled in, dragging the monsters with it. They changed the timeline. They need it to stay changed. Indianola needs it to stay changed. And a hundred years ago, as part of that timeline, Julie’s ancestor saved Claire’s ancestor—

  From a shack on the beach.

  Julie has to go to the beach.

  The astronaut is trying to change that night. She’s using Claire to re-create it, to alter it, Julie’s sure of it.

  And what she’s doing will wipe out the monsters and the town.

  Julie hurries back outside. The lobster says something, but to Julie his voice is a blur. She races to the car. The trees in the parking lot thrash with the wind. The rain sounds like the chatter of insects.

  She grabs hold of her car handle. Locked. Dammit. She fumbles for her keys, opens the door, starts the engine. She shakes with fear and anxiety, a sick dread that something has happened to Claire. Is happening to Claire. To Lawrence too. To everyone.

  And she won’t be able to stop it.

  The rain falls harder and harder, splattering across the windshield. She pulls out of the parking lot, swerving to avoid hitting the stream of cars pouring in for the masquerade. After the pounding music of the dance, her hearing is fuzzy and distorted. The rain on the roof of the car sounds like buzzing. That can’t be right.

  Lightning shatters the sky into pieces.

  Julie tightens her hands on the steering wheel. The wipers swish and click a
cross the glass. Even in her panic she knows going to the beach in this weather is a terrible idea. But if Claire and Lawrence are out there…

  Another flash of lightning. Julie jumps, nervous and frightened, even though she’s never been afraid of lightning. But there’s something ferocious about this lightning, like it’s not electrons charging through the clouds but something else. Something no one on Earth has seen before.

  “Hurry!” Julie whispers to herself, pressing her foot down on the gas. The car careens through downtown. Dunes rise up behind the buildings.

  And then another flash of lightning arcs through the storm clouds. But this one doesn’t flicker away. It etches lines all across the sky and hangs there. The sky looks like cracked porcelain.

  Julie lets out a cry of horror. The engine roars and the car shoots forward, toward the silhouette of dunes at the end of a street. The rain falls harder, and the wipers can barely sluice it off. She feels a moment of clarity.

  A hundred years ago, Javier saved Abigail. Now Julie is Javier. Claire is Abigail.

  And Javier has to save Abigail again.

  Julie’s car bursts onto the beach, weaving through the dunes. Off in the Gulf the waves rise huge and towering. Over the constant, unnatural buzzing in her head, Julie think she hears something—a voice, muffled and far away. She slams on the brakes.

  “Claire?” she shouts, whipping her head around. She can’t see anything but falling rain. She climbs out of the car. The lightning lines still etch across the sky, although they’re dimming. But then there’s a riotous crash of thunder, and the lines infuse with light.

  “No,” she whispers. Then she spins around in place, ignoring the rain pounding down on her. “Claire!” she shouts. “It’s Julie!”

  “Julie?”

  The voice again. It’s not Claire’s. Lawrence? It sounds closer now.

  “Lawrence?” Julie shouts. “Hello? Where are you!?”

  “Julie, is that you?”

  It’s hard to hear anything over the rain and the rushing waves. Julie stumbles over dune vines and lands hard in the wet sand.

  “I think I can see you!” Definitely Lawrence. “Move a few feet forward.”

  Julie crawls, sand squeezing up between her fingers, rain beating down against her back. She lifts her head. Wet hair hangs in her eyes.

  Lawrence sits in a chair at the top of the dune.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Julie shouts. She scrambles to her feet. “Where’s Claire? Is she with you?”

  “Claire?” Lawrence shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was in the car. That was the last—”

  “The car?” Julie hangs back, suddenly cautious. Audrey’s nowhere to be seen, but that doesn’t mean anything. Especially with Lawrence acting so weird, sitting on a chair like he’s the king of the beach. “What car? Where is she now?”

  “Audrey’s car. We were down near the water.” Lawrence gazes at Julie through the sheeting rain. His eyes seem glassy and dark. “And then we were here on the dunes. I don’t remember—She tied me to this chair?” He says it like a question, looking down at his lap.

  “She what?” And suddenly, though the curtain of rain and the pale light fragmenting the sky, Julie can see the ropes cutting into Lawrence’s arms. Some kind of stick or something is jammed into the ropes too. She darts forward and tugs at the knots behind the chair. Her fingers are slippery and the knots are tight, and her breath comes fast. “So you don’t know where Claire is?”

  “I told you, the car,” Lawrence says. “I thought we were going to the dance. But then Audrey drove us here.” His voice fades away. “I don’t know where Audrey is.”

  “What the hell is with that cane?” Julie asks. “You didn’t bring your gun, did you?”

  “My gun?” Lawrence’s head lolls. “No, why would I have my gun if I was going out with Audrey?”

  “And Claire!” Julie shouts. “Is Claire still in Audrey’s car? Is Audrey taking her somewhere?” Julie loosens his binds, digging her fingernails deep into the rope.

  “No, I didn’t bring my gun,” Lawrence says, his voice far away. “This is my dad’s cane. Part of my costume. We were supposed to be at the dance.”

  Thunder roars overhead. Julie gives a shriek of frustration—at the rope, at Lawrence, at everything. “Where is Claire?” she screams, one last time.

  “In the car,” he says dreamily. “We left her there.”

  Julie freezes, the knots half-undone beneath her fingers. She looks at Lawrence, dread coiling in her stomach. “What?” she whispers.

  Lawrence meets her eye, rain streaming down his face. “Audrey locked her in the car on the beach,” he says, a burst of clarity.

  Julie attacks the rope with renewed fury, the ties dissolving in her hands, and it falls away. Lawrence’s cane lands in Julie’s lap. The carved wood is soft and soaked through, but the metal knob at the top has a name etched into it. A familiar one.

  Emmert.

  Julie stands up so quickly her head spins. Lawrence sits motionless, the ropes still wrapped around his torso.

  “This,” she says, shoving the cane at him. “Where did you get this?”

  “We need to find Audrey,” he says softly. “She’s out there somewhere—”

  “Stop talking about her! She’s got you under some kind of spell!” Julie brandishes the cane. “I’m serious, Lawrence. Where did you get this?”

  “My dad.” Lawrence rubs his forehead. “Left it behind. It’s always been in the family.”

  “Your dad’s last name is Foster,” Julie says, squeezing the cane tight. “Not Emmert.”

  “His great-grandfather was an Emmert.” Lawrence stands up, the rope falling away, and a black cape flutters out behind him. In any other situation, Julie would find that funny. Not tonight. “You shouldn’t be out here. This storm is dangerous. I need to find Audrey.”

  “Henry Emmert,” Julie whispers. Of course. The third piece of the puzzle. An Alvarez, a Sudek, and an Emmert. The Emmert died, last time. But not tonight.

  Tonight, a Sudek will die.

  “I have to find Claire,” Julie says. “Now.”

  “No,” says Lawrence. “We have to find Audrey.”

  “Fuck Audrey!” Julie screams. “She’s responsible for this, don’t you understand? I need you to show me where Claire is!”

  A Sudek will die, but not if an Alvarez saves her. The timelines have to be re-created.

  “But Audrey—” Lawrence whimpers.

  “Is responsible for all of this!” Julie grabs Lawrence’s arm and tries to yank him toward the waves crashing in the storm. The rain thunders around them. Lawrence digs his feet into the sand.

  “Please,” Julie says, tears brimming at the edges of her eyes.

  The air buzzes and hums, and the lines in the sky brighten. The waves are silver in the distance.

  “To the left,” Lawrence whispers.

  He leads her out of the dunes, onto the open beach. The wind sweeps down the shore in violent, blustery gusts, and the waves crash off to the side, swelling bigger and bigger. The sky is lined with that weird lightning. It feels like the world is falling apart.

  There are miles of beach in Indianola, Julie knows that, but she prays Lawrence knows where to find Claire even in his confused, jumbled-up state.

  He halts abruptly. Julie runs into him. “Why’d you stop?”

  “You said to find Claire,” he says in a dull voice. The wind howls around them. “And there she is.”

  He points, and Julie looks into the darkness at a sphere of light growing out of the beach ahead of them.

  Julie darts forward, but Lawrence grabs her by the arm and pulls her back.

  “Audrey wouldn’t want us to.”

  Julie hisses in disgust and throws off Lawrence’s hand. “Who cares what Audrey wants?” She squints through the rain at the sphere of light. The storm is so loud, she can barely think.

  “I can feel her in my head,” Lawrence says. “She’s telling me n
ot—”

  But Julie rushes forward, leaving him in the rain. She brings the cane with her. The light pulses in the darkness, slow and steady like a metronome. Julie feels that pulse boring into her brain. Numbing her.

  She wipes water from her eyes. She won’t let that light turn her numb. She has to see what’s there. She has to see if Claire is in the car.

  “Julie, she wants us to stop!” Lawrence’s voice sounds far away. Julie ignores him.

  The waves roar and crash against the sand. With each surge she moves closer to the ball of light, but slowly, she finds it harder and harder to move. The air is like sap, sticking to her limbs, holding her in place. The light hurts her eyes. She stares at it, terrified, not sure what’s happening.

  And then something moves inside the car. A shadow in the shape of a girl.

  “Claire!” She tries to race forward, but there’s a membrane between her and the light, and as hard as Julie pushes, she can’t break free of it: She feels it sticking to her face, to her skin, tangling up in her hair. But she strains anyway, pushing toward that shadow in the light.

  Inside the car, two fists appear in silhouette. Two fists, banging on the window. A noise rises out of the roar of the ocean, a sort of keening. It’s coming from the direction of the light. It sounds like eeeee.

  Julieee!

  She hears her name in Claire’s voice. It seems to drum up out of the rain.

  Julie Julie Help me Julie

  “I’m coming!” Julie screams, fighting against the thick membranous air. She shoves Lawrence’s cane into the sand, using it as a lever to pull herself forward, her eyes never leaving the shadow. The rain has soaked through her clothes, and the waves are crashing closer and closer, their foam lapping up around her feet, but she has to get to that light. She has to save Claire.

  Another crack of thunder. More lines appear in the sky, shattering it into pieces. The waves glow pink. Seawater swirls around Julie’s ankles.

  The molasses air is in her lungs now. It’s getting harder to breathe. But the shadow keeps banging her fists against the car window and Julie thinks she can see features, Claire’s features, all twisted up with fear.

  “I’m coming!” she gasps, and then, with one last burst of strength, she hurls herself at the car.